ASTON VILLA head towards Saturday’s crunch game against Manchester United with Martin O’Neill laying down the challenge to repeat their “electric” performance at The Emirates.

The Irishman clearly believes that his players may now have cleared a mental hurdle in ending a 15 year wait for a win at Arsenal. Now he is looking for the belief that they can end 13 years of misery against the European Champions.

“It is a case of easy words but I just think that was a performance for them to believe in,’’ said O’Neill of the 2-0 win last weekend.

“They could go to Arsenal, be brave, be so strong and be so attack-minded.

“Everybody played so well and kept it going and didn’t get despondent when the chances were spurned. I thought that was a basic difference, albeit some notches up, from the first-half performance at Newcastle.

“The players had that belief that they will score a goal, that they will make chances in the game and a belief in the method in which they were playing, which was exhilerating.”

O’Neill is still buzzing four days after the win over Arsene Wenger’s side. He added: “The result allied to the performance was really terrific.

“It was full of really good football and has certainly given a big boost of confidence to the players.

“Really, from start to finish the team was electric. The performance was full of energy.

“It was terrific and the players must take a great deal of confidence and self belief from that.”

He continued: “What was very pleasing was that we went there on the back of two disappointing results in games (Newcastle and Middlesbrough) where we should have got something from both matches.

“I thought that the determination from the side was evident from the beginning.